


After Crait

by how_do_i_turn_this_thing_off



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, One Shot, One-Shot, Oneshot, Reylo - Freeform, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 13:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13459197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/how_do_i_turn_this_thing_off/pseuds/how_do_i_turn_this_thing_off
Summary: When the Force Bond fails to activate for several days after Crait Ren visits Jakku in an effort to get closer to and understand Rey and hopefully trigger the Force Bond somehow.Prompts that inspired this include:- Ren goes to Jakku- Ren meets / finds out about / has to decide what to do with Unkar Plutt- Ren feels when Leia dies through the Force- Rey tells Ren about Leia’s deathFirst published on tumblr @how-do-i-turn-this-thing-off





	After Crait

 

  “Supreme Leader!” the stormtrooper captain said, standing stiffly at attention in front of his men.  “Welcome to Jakku.  We’ve arranged a local guide and transportation, should you require it.”

   “Guard my ship,” Ren ordered, passing him without a glance.  The post had been set up on the borders of the area where she had lived.  There was no good reason for it, not really- Hux had already made sure Ren was thoroughly aware Jakku was tactically useless and a waste of time and supplies- but he wanted at least a token presence on the planet in case she did come back.  Hux didn’t think it would happen but Hux didn’t know this girl.  There was nothing she liked so much as taking extreme risks for useless reasons.

   “Sir, we should canvas the area,” his head guard advised him, moving just a little in front of Ren on his left, head on a swivel.

   “If there’s a threat you can handle it,” Ren said, not glancing at him either.  He had eight Praetorian guards of his own now, at Hux’s insistence, and if he’d given the General his way he would have had a whole company of stormtroopers permanently in lockstep behind him as well.  Pretending Rey had killed Snoke, all of Snoke’s guards, and left him for dead had backfired rather drastically.  Now Hux had all the excuse he needed to keep Ren under constant surveillance while pretending it was for his own good.

   The Nima Outpost settlement was a ragtag group of round clay hovels and ragged tents.  Hardly anyone frequented the storefronts and paths between them but when he used the Force to seek out the rest he found them all hidden just out of sight.  It wasn’t important; he only needed one.

   “Find me a child,” Ren ordered his head guard.  “A slave child.”

   “Yes, sir.”  Brief commands were given and two of the other Pratorians branched off, taking each side of the main road.  Ren waited, turning towards the desert, reaching out with his senses.  There was so little here except for sand and misery.  It was hard to fathom how someone like her could come from a place like this but he’d been to Tattooine while searching for Luke, and that hadn’t been much different.

   “Supreme Leader,” a Praetorian said, returning with a child he was dragging by the arm, and none too gently.  “The slave child you requested.”

   “Stand aside,” Ren ordered.  The Praetorian let go and moved away as the child, a boy of no more than nine, stood trembling and dirty before him.

   “You are a slave?” Ren confirmed.  The child nodded.  “You live here?” Another nod.  Ren sighed inwardly, kneeling down to put himself at the child’s level.  In the Force he could feel the fear emanating from the boy ease just a little.

   “There was a girl here, once,” he said in a somewhat more gentle voice. “She’s an outlaw now.  I want to know where she lived.”  The child hesitated, eyes tracking away from Ren then back to him, indecisive.  “Were one of these houses hers?” Ren prompted, gesturing around him.

   “No,” the boy said, very, very softly.

   “Somewhere else?”

   “Away, in the sands.”

   “Where?”

   The child shrugged, shaking his head.

   “From which direction?” Ren insisted.

   “That way,” he replied, pointing vaguely westward.  “She worked in the big ships.  We’re not allowed there.”

   “The big ships?”

   “Big,” the boy confirmed, looking, not at the desert, but at the sky.  “Big like yours.”

   “Sir, the scanner shows the wreckage of several ships including at least one Star Destroyer in that direction,” one of the Praetorians said, handing him a scanner as he stood.

   “Give the boy some food,” Ren said briefly, turning in that direction. “Get us some speeders.”

   It didn’t take long- the First Order post here might be small and easily forgotten, but there was no denying the captain was efficient- and soon they were moving on speeders across the desert towards the outline of the Destroyer on the horizon.  Ren pushed his senses, scanning the area for any echo of her.  She wouldn’t have stayed at the Destroyer itself, surely.  He found the sensation he was looking for at last and corrected course, focusing on a dim glow like a light still running on a dying battery.

   The site, when they did reach it, was not impressive.  He stopped on the crest of the hill above and surveyed the ancient AT-AT below, collapsed on its side, half-buried in sand.  This had been hers, he was sure of it.

   “Stay up above,” he told the guards.

   “One of us should go with you, Supreme Leader,” the head guard said, the one Ren suspected was most loyal to Hux, his eyes always following everything Ren did without emotion but with a great deal of watchfulness.

   “No,” Ren said shortly, turning away from him.  He didn’t try to follow, which was wise because Ren was already very much in the mood to fling someone over a nearby dune.  This planet was hot, ugly, and squalid. The only reason he’d come this far out of his way was in the wreckage before him, that tiny echo, that sense of her she’d left behind. There had to be something here, if only because he didn’t know where else to look.

   He couldn’t stand up straight once he entered the dark, gutted troop compartment, half-drifted with sand.  A hammock hung against one wall next to some shelves with mechanical odds and ends.  On the other side of the room a couple upturned canisters made for a stove, a table.  If there had been anything of value it had been stolen since she left, though he very much doubted there had ever been much here worth anyone’s time.

   Certainly nothing worth a visit from the Supreme Leader himself.

   He made a full examination of the area anyway, frustration and desperation welling up inside him in equal measure.  This place felt like her, barely, and fading, but that was all.  He could have gotten the same resonance from a dozen other places he knew she had been, and nearly as much insight.  He pushed some junk off the top of some metal crates and sat, forcing himself to calm his mind and concentrate. There was more here and he would find it.  There had to be.  His boot knocked against a helmet painted white and orange and he rolled his eyes at it.  Of course she had some relic of the Rebellion lying around.  

   A shiver went across him, like a cool breeze in this stuffy quiet, and he looked up and saw her lying on her back in empty space, eyes closed, sunlight dappling her body through trees he couldn’t see. “Ben,” she said, not opening her eyes or otherwise acknowledging him at all.

   “Rey,” he replied, his voice strangled and harsh, both from the sand and because that was how he always seemed to say her name these days, on the rare occasion he did say it.  Anger and relief washed through him in equal measure, hot and cold.

   “Do you have a throne room yet?” she asked, the question catching him off guard.  A habit, with her.

   “No.”

   “Will it be all black?”

   “I don’t plan to have one.  I don’t want one.  You’re in a forest?” She looked at him then, turning her head, her eyes lit by the sun.

   “I’ve been fishing,” she told him.

   “Fishing,” he repeated, nonplussed.

   “It’s interesting, if you try to fish with the Force,” she said, smiling. “They’re fast.  I’ve never fished at all but I saw Luke do it once.  He used a spear but I’ve been using my bare hands.”

   “And is that how you intend to save the galaxy from me?  By using the Force for fishing?”

   “Maybe.”

   He examined her, not knowing what to say.  This Rey- Rey at peace, happy, her arms wet to the elbow because she’d been fishing- was the last thing he’d expected to see when the Force finally did connect them again, and it wounded him.  He’d been actively seeking her in the Force, assuming she was doing the same, trying to be alone as often as possible even with the Praetorians breathing down his neck, and she’d been fishing.

   “My mother is dead,” he said, bluntly, unforgivingly, letting the condemnation drop into her perfect day like a stone into a calm pool, shattering the surface.  Sure enough her expression changed instantly, morphing into sadness and chagrin, and she sat up.

   “Ben… I’m sorry, I should have known you–.”

   “Felt it?” he interrupted.  “The moment it happened.  Nine days ago.”  _And I waited for you every one of those nine days_ , he added silently, in his head.   _While you were out fishing_.

   “Would have questions,” she corrected, her expression heartrendingly understanding, not that it would do her any good now.  She’d had nine long days to be understanding.

   “Tell me,” he ordered.

   “She got sick,” Rey said softly, her hands meeting in her lap, fingers intertwining.  “Really sick.  It’s been hard, since Crait, sometimes, and it took us a while to find a doctor, one that would work for the Resistance without getting paid.  But he said there wasn’t anything he could have done anyway.  I tried–,” she said, fluttering a hand through the air, “you know, with the Force, but I don’t think that’s one of my skills.  I’m sorry, Ben.”

   She’d tried to heal his mother.  He’d been with the First Order, discussing strategies to find them and kill them all, while his mother was dying and Rey tried to heal her.  And now she was crying about it, he could feel the tears about to fall as clearly as if they were his own, but he couldn’t feel anything inside himself.  He was nothing but stone, stone and ashes and the sense of her whenever and wherever he could get it.  Sometimes he thought the only emotions he still had were the ones he felt from her, and wished that their bond would connect them all the time, whatever the consequences.  Sometimes he wished he could shut the bond off completely, for the same reason.

   “There was a funeral?” he prompted, after a long silence where she tried and failed not to cry in front of him.  She nodded, head down, face screwed up in pain.  “Where is she buried?”

   “We sent her out in an escape pod,” she managed to tell him as her tears flowed thick and freely.  “Towards the Alderaan asteroid field.  We didn’t know what she would have wanted but it seemed, I don’t know, it seemed right.”

   “Well,” he said, looking away from her, his own throat tight.  Her emotions, saturating him like starlight after so long in featureless darkness. “So ends Leia Organa Solo.”

   “I’m so, so sorry Ben,” Rey said, standing and inching towards him like he was some wild creature that might startle.

   “I already knew,” he shrugged.  Damn her; his own tears had started now in response to hers, because she was so close, because the feeling of her was so strong.  He felt one fall but couldn’t find the effort required to brush the wetness away.

   “Now you’re an orphan too, I guess,” she said, kneeling in front of him when he wouldn’t look up at her and trying to smile at him through her own sadness.  “Like me.”

   “Everyone becomes an orphan eventually.”  She tried to take his hands but he pulled away from her within the bond and her fingers slipped right through him.

   “Ben–.”

   “I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he interrupted.

   “No, I– I’ve been busy,” she said, pulling her hands back.

   “Busy?”

   “Always with other people, I guess.  Traveling a lot.  I’m getting to see lots of different planets now.”

   “Not missing Jakku?” he asked, fighting the urge to glance too obviously at her home planet, all around him.

   “No,” she said, and this time she did manage a real smile, sitting back on her heels and wiping her face on her already damp sleeve.  “Not at all.  Though I do miss the sunsets, sometimes, out in the sands.”

   “I thought on Jakku even a sunset would be ugly.”

   “Jakku’s not ugly,” she said, looking away from him, a distant cast to her eyes.  “Well, I mean, it’s not the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, but it’s mostly just harsh.  It can be beautiful,” she said, looking back at him.

   “I don’t like deserts,” he told her flatly, even as the sun baked the outside of the AT-AT and he thought he might almost combust in the oven-like heat.

   “Well then I guess you wouldn’t like Jakku,” she said, laughing a little. The sound went right to the core of him, shaking something loose he didn’t even know had been there to start with.  Had be ever heard her laugh before?  He’d certainly never made her laugh before.  “But I did learn a lot there,” she continued.  “How to fix things, how to pilot, how to hit people really hard with a stick.”

   He almost- very very nearly- smiled, barely catching himself at the last minute.  “Necessary skills,” he agreed, keeping his tone solemn.

   “But it was lonely,” she admitted, still smiling.  “At night sometimes I’d hear things in the desert, you know.  Once some raiders tried to attack my house and steal me from Unkar Plutt.  Revenge for a bad deal or something.”

   “And you killed them.”

   “No!” she protested, laughing again.  Twice in one day.  This was more than he could have ever expected.  “I mean, I beat them up really badly and screamed some stuff at them, but they ran off on their own.”

   He could imagine it, sitting here, he could see her in his mind, prowling the sands outside this disgrace of a shelter, staff in hand, screaming insults at entire gangs of career criminals as she beat them all to hell.  Probably half their size, too.  “The Force must have been strong with you even then.”

   “I think it was.  I just didn’t know it.”  She gave him a searching look, her eyes taking all of him in.  Another of her habits. “Practicing for when I met you, I guess.”

   “You were a hellion.”

   “I still am.”

   He did smile, then, just the smallest bit before he could realize and stop himself, and Rey rewarded him with another grin and another little laugh that seemed to light him up inside.  She looked away, scanning something where she was, and he barely hesitated before getting up, intentionally calling her attention back to him as he knelt next to her.  She couldn’t leave again, not this soon.  He’d come all this way to find a road back to her, he couldn’t let her go so easily.  “Have you made any progress in the Force?” he asked.

   “I’ve been trying,” she said, turning towards him so they were facing each other.  “I’ve been meditating like Luke showed me but I don’t really know how to do anything else.”

   “What did he show you?”

   “He said to close my eyes, reach out with my mind, and let myself feel the Force so I can understand it better,” she said.  “You know, the first time I did it, when he said ‘reach out’ I actually reached out in front of me?  With my hand?”  She grinned, shaking her head at herself.

   “Of course you did,” he said, smiling again.  She seemed to appreciate that, and whatever worked he was willing to try, at this point. “What else?”

   “That’s all,” she said, shrugging.

   “Alright, we’ll run through some basic exercises,” he said, and went straight into the Padawan first forms, showing her how to sit, how to breathe. She listened closely and did everything she was told and soon enough she had her eyes closed, breathing in the correct rhythm, floating ever-so-slightly in the air.  He didn’t meditate himself but watched, feeling full in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.  The Force flowed between them like peace personified and he knew she felt it too, knew it was part of the reason she was learning so quickly, growing so fast.  What she didn’t know, couldn’t know, was how she looked to him right now, sitting in the center of her past, sunlight splashed on her in a darkened room, literally glowing.

   After a while she opened her eyes, cinnamon in the sunlight, full of a calm wonder.  “That worked,” she said.  “I mean, I felt it.  It was, I don’t know, like I was connecting with the Force in a new way.”

   “I can show you more,” he offered, literally betraying the First Order with every word and not caring.  “Things you can do wherever you are, to help you learn about the Force inside of you.”

   “It looks like I need it,” she agreed, glancing away from him again. How he hated to see her do it, how he hated anything that reminded him she would have to go.  He wanted it to be just them, on the most distant planet in the galaxy, ignoring everything but each other.

   “I have to get back to what I was doing,” he said before she could, just to spare himself having to hear it.  “Practice those forms every day.”

   “I will,” she promised as they both got to their feet.

   “And try to be alone more often,” he couldn’t help but remind her.   _Come back to me more often, Rey.  Think about me, hope you’ll see me, at least half as much as I hope I’ll see you_.

   “Ben…” she said, hesitating.  He watched, drinking it in.  He loved it, any indication she didn’t want to go either, any chance to stay another few seconds with her.  “About you mother…”

   Oh. “I’ll send someone out to look for the escape pod, if you’ll give me the coordinates of where it should be by now,” he said.  “I’ll make sure it gets to Alderaan.”

   “Thank you,” she said, looking relieved and grateful.  “I won’t be able to tell them but I’m sure the Rebels would be glad to know she’ll make it there.”  He looked away, resisting the urge to remind her that Leia was HIS mother and the rest of the Rebels could all go to hell.  “Are you meditating every day?” she asked.

   “No.” Constantly reaching for her in the Force probably didn’t count.

   “You should.  You seem tired.”

   He tried to bite back the confession that sprang to his lips but he had to say it, he had to.  “I’ve been waiting for you, Rey,” he told her.  “I’ve been looking for you.”

   “I’m right here.”

   “Not always.”

   “Should I attack a couple First Order bases just to make sure you don’t feel lonely?” she teased.

   “Absolutely, do it,” he said without hesitation.  She’d give away where she was. He’d find her in half a day, if that.

   “I’ll see what Poe says,” she said, looking away.  He heard someone behind her, a man, calling her name, and the next minute she winked out of existence and was gone.

   “Rey,” he protested, but it was useless.  He should have remembered how abrupt Force bonds were. You didn’t get to choose when you said goodbye.

   Without her here, glowing and smiling and pouring emotion back into him, this place seemed even smaller, even uglier and more decayed, raw with the terrible absence of her.  It wasn’t just Jakku’s fault, he saw that now. It was the same everywhere.  Everywhere that didn’t have her was worse for it.

   He emerged into the early stages of a Jakku sunset.  It would be beautiful, probably.  He’d get plenty of chance to see it.  As he looked towards the ridge above him the Praetorians hastily stowed some scanners out of sight.  Of course.  Constant surveillance.

   “Supreme Leader,” the head guard greeted him when he made his way up to where they were standing.  “What would you like to do now?”

   “Send a message to General Hux,” he ordered, proceeding to his speeder. “I’ll be joining him soon.”

   “Yes, sir,” the guard said as they all mounted their speeders together, turning back towards the Nima Outpost.  They’d probably recorded the entire conversation; his side of it, anyway.  It wouldn’t be hard to figure out who he was talking to.  Hux would have a lot to say about it but would probably be pretty well placated by news of General Leia’s death and the promise of the trajectory that would lead them to where the Resistance was, or at least had been nine days ago.

   The sunset was beautiful, and cooled the desert down by a considerable degree.  It was dark by the time they reached the Outpost and Ren almost sped right by it before hesitating, slowing down.  What was the name Rey had mentioned? Unkar Plutt?

   “Supreme Leader?” the head guard queried, slowing his speeder down alongside Ren’s.  Ren opened his mouth, about to give the order, then hesitated.  It would be so easy to have the man dragged out, to execute him on the spot for daring to own her, to call her his for so much of her life, but why?  Rey had no pain tied to this place, no regrets, no lingering doubts holding her back.  It would be merely self-indulgent, and to what purpose?

   “Give orders to the base captain to arrest a man named Unkar Plutt in the morning,” he said instead.

   “Yes, sir.  What are the charges?”

   “Whatever he likes.  I’m sure he’ll think of something.  Keep him detained as long as it takes to convince him Jakku isn’t where he wants to be anymore.”

   “Yes, Supreme Leader,” the guard said.  It was a tiny revenge compared to what he’d rather do- disembowelment being a strong contender on that list- but it was better somehow.  At least if Rey did ever come back she wouldn’t have to see that man here anymore.

   They boarded his ship and Jakku fell away from them, a dirty little sand planet, a speck of nowhere.  Ren watched it go until it was out of sight, holding tightly to the feeling of her she’d given him.  It wasn’t enough, but it was enough for now.


End file.
